Umeå was not an inviting town in 1976. I felt lonely… My son has later described my homecomings at weekends as those of a stranger. I spent most of my time sitting in the library studying in order to get my teacher’s degree as fast as possible. It was a time for sacrifice. We did not have much money. The Swedish system with a study grant was important to our economy. In the summer I earned some money on summer jobs in Sundsvall.

There were some positive highlights that I will mention in coming texts concerning my years in Umeå. The first one I would mention was enrolling in the Social-Democratic Student Association. I learned on arrival that every student had to belong to the Student Union (kår). I also learned that students could elect their representatives to the student Parliament.

Umeå was still living the spirit of 1968. They were many discussions and debates concerning most things big and small. The SD students were radical and much on the left of the main party. The British “Militant” section of the Labour party was the inspiration. The ideas for the newspaper” Offensiv”, were based on Trotskij’s socialist defiance of Stalin Communism. When I enrolled I got involved in the matter at hand that had to do on whether or not a number of members of the club should be excluded. A decision was eventually taken and some of the “Offensiv” members were excluded and accused of infiltration. When I arrived most of these exclusions had already been carried through.

Maybe one should remember in what world we were living then with violent Vietnam war just ended after 20 years and quiet cold war dividing people and ideas.

The student club was a place to be welcomed in. The interest for international questions and politics engaged and excited me. I recall many of these colleagues and many interesting meetings we had. I was invited to travel to different towns in the north and Olle Westerlund’s old Volvo took us to places like Storuman in the Lapland interior. We travelled there through snowstorms and reindeer herds.